Goli Sheikholeslami

Fox News has learned that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth ordered Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to remove Col Dave Butler from his current job serving as chief of Army Public Affairs and chief advisor to Secretary Driscoll, who is currently in Geneva serving on the negotiating team to end the Ukraine war. Butler, served as the head of public affairs for the Joint Chiefs when Gen Mark Milley was Chairman, and was slated to receive his first star. His name appeared for two years in a row on an Army list of 34 officers selected for promotion. That list has been held up by Secretary Hegseth for nearly 4 months because he reportedly has concerns about 4-5 officers selected by the Army board but by law cannot remove them from the list. Col Butler volunteered to take his name off the promotion list, if it would help unlock the other promotions, according to a well placed Army official. Driscoll, an Army veteran and close ally of Vice President JD Vance, attended Yale Law School with the Vice President and had resisted Hegseth’s pressure to fire Col Butler for months because of his ongoing contributions to the transformation of the US Army. “We greatly appreciate COL Dave Butler’s lifetime of service in America’s Army and to our nation. Dave has been an integral part of the Army’s transformation efforts. He will be missed and I sincerely wish him tremendous success in his upcoming retirement after 28 years of service,” Driscoll said in a statement. Col Butler travelled with Driscoll to Ukraine last November to help jumpstart negotiations. The demand by Hegseth came last Thursday, Fox News has learned. Secretary Hegseth entered the Pentagon and immediately began firing top officers or forcing them into early retirement without giving a reason or for cause: Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who was serving as Chief of Naval Operations, General CQ Brown who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Mingus, who was serving as Vice Chief of the Army, General DA Sims, director of the Joint Staff, Air Force Chief General David Allvin, General James Slife, Vice Chief of the Air Force, and General Timothy Haugh, director of the NSA, among others. The unexplained firings have led to fear, uncertainty and an unwillingness to speak up among senior military leaders. One of the Army’s best communicators, Col Butler served alongside the nation’s tiered Special Operations units on countless missions overseas attached to the Army’s Delta Force from 2010- 2014. He served as the public affairs officer to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina from 2015-2018 and as the public affairs officer for Gen Scott Miller when he was JSOC commander from 2016 – 2018 and then at Gen Miller’s request served in Afghanistan when Gen Miller deployed to Afghanistan from 2018- 19. Col Butler served as the chief spokesman and director of communications for all US and NATO forces during that time that Gen Miller served as the top 4 star general in Afghanistan. A former 4 star commander who once commanded US Special Operations said Butler was “the consummate professional, the most competent Public Affairs officer I have ever worked with and a gifted practitioner of strategic communications.” During the Army’s 250th birthday celebrations last year, President Trump recognized Col Butler by name for helping the Army Chief to organize the parade in Washington DC. The Pentagon declined to comment and referred us back to Army public affairs.